Okay, I’m ready to come clean. My house is a mess and so are my finances. There I said it and finally getting it out there doesn’t make me feel any better. I think it’s time to get real and take responsibility for the mess I’ve helped to create.


What’s my plan of attack?

Finances - I need to figure out exactly how much I owe and come up with a payment plan. For years I’ve been living in denial but I’m done with that, obviously it hasn’t gotten me anywhere.

I’ve done some preliminary estimating and with just my credit cards alone we owe $38,000. Ouch! How in the heck did I let that get so far out of hand? The crazy thing here, is I haven’t charged anything on the cards in YEARS!

Paying the minimum payments and having a few late payments (just out of sheer laziness) has created a financial nightmare that I am just now waking up from. The late payments on one card in particular caused the interest rate to shoot up from 10% to a whooping 31.9%! I realized it’s all my own fault, all of it, the late payments, the high balance, all of it.

I actually had a slap in the face back in September when my interest rate jumped to 31.9% on a credit card that has a $18,000 balance and since then I’ve been paying on time and really thinking a lot about straightening out both my finances and my messy house. I called that card after 4 months of paying on-time and asked if they’d be willing to lower my interest rate and I got a resounding, “NO”. Okay, I know I’m the one that messed up my interest rate but I wasn’t even late 4 times and they jacked up my interest rate. That card’s rep actually told me that I’d have to pay my card on-time for a year and a half before they’d consider lowering my interest rate. Lesson learned - PAY credit cards on time!

I caught a break last week. I was paying a credit card by phone, I actually pay this one off every month. After I finished paying, there was a recorded message asking if I wanted to transfer a balance at a low rate. Well, I figured with my late payments on the other card there was no way this offer was really for me. I was transfered over to another person and low and behold this credit card was willing to let me transfer $18,000 from the high interest card for only 4.99% interest until the balance is paid off. I swear I felt like I’d hit the lottery (but I did have to add another $500 to my balance for the transfer but I think it’s worth it verses paying the high interest rate on the other card). I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel.

So my plan of attack with my credit cards is to do the “snowball plan”. I will be paying an additional $100+ above the minimum payments on my credit cards. I’ll be paying a grand total of $1,240.00 a month on my credit cards.

Some things I’m going to do to cut back monthly expenses:
1. I’m in the process of cleaning out a storage unit that I’ve had for years. This alone will save me $120 a month!
2. I’m also going to cancel my high dollar satellite tv package and just go with the basic package I’m guessing that’ll save me about $30-$40 a month.
3. I will stop subscribing to magazines that I barely read and that just end up cluttering my house.
4. I will line dry the majority of my families clothes when weather permits.
5. I will review the weekly grocery store ads and plan our meals around the sales.
6. I will Ebay stuff around the house that I don’t need or want.
7. I will make and list for sale at least 2+ items a month on my Etsy store. I’ll need at least a week to get something together before I can list my 1st item.
8. I will plant a vegetable garden again this spring.

I’m thinking that if I follow this plan I should be able to shave $11,000 off my credit cards in one year. After one year, I will also have paid off a truck and a travel trailer and this will free up an additional $500 a month to then apply to my credit cards. So, if everything goes according to plan, I should be credit card debt free in the Spring of 2010. I know things come up though so I’m not fooling myself but it sure does feel good to even think that I could be out of this financial hell hole that I’ve dug for myself.

My Mess of a Cluttered House - I’m planning on following FlyLady’s plan to get organized and have my house nice and clean. She advocates taking “baby steps” and I think that’s just what I need to do to get my house in order.

I’d just love to have a nice clean house and not have to freak out and go on a cleaning rampage if someone calls and says they’ll be over to visit in a little bit. I’m going to have to get my kids to help out though.

I plan on rounding up all the stuff that I think will sell on Ebay and then sell it and apply whatever money I get to my credit cards. Stuff that I don’t think will sell on Ebay I plan on taking and selling at the flea market (my husband doesn’t like strangers coming around our place so a yard or barn sale is out of the question). Stuff that I doesn’t sell will be donated to my local Hospice thrift store.

I know that my house and my finances aren’t going to come together over night. They both took a long time to get this messy and it’ll take awhile to straighten them out.

Wish me luck because I’m going to be needing it!